Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe must spend the rest of his life behind bars, Britain's High Court ruled today.
The decision was announced by Mr Justice Mitting, sitting in London.
Now known as Peter Coonan, the 63-year-old former lorry driver, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, received 20 life terms for the murder of 13 women and the attempted murder of seven others in Yorkshire and Greater Manchester.
The judge ruled that “early release provisions” were “not to apply”.
Sutcliffe's name was not on a Home Office list, published in 2006, of 35 murderers serving “whole life” sentences and he was given no formal minimum term — which is the least a prisoner must serve before becoming eligible to apply for release on parole.
He is currently being held in Broadmoor top security psychiatric hospital after being transferred from prison in 1984 suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.
It was on July 5 1975, just 11 months after his marriage, that he took a hammer and made his first attack on a woman.
Sutcliffe is said to have believed he was on a “mission from God” to kill prostitutes — although not all of his victims were sex workers — and was dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper because he mutilated their bodies using a hammer, a
sharpened screwdriver and a knife.
He spent nearly all of his years in custody at Broadmoor after being diagnosed as mentally ill, but refused treatment until 1993 when the Mental Health Commission ruled it should be given forcibly.
A judge recently refused to allow fresh psychiatric evidence to be admitted as part of the tariff-setting exercise, although he said it could be considered in relation to his conduct post-sentence.